Taking Vitals

I need to be more on my "A" game.  I wasn't prepared for what we were doing today.  I had forgotten to look at my module for the day to see what was going to take place.  Well, I didn't get my unit set up and felt pretty dumb when Prof. Costley came over and asked why I wasn't prepared.  The module specifically said to have my unit set up for a patient before class started.  I hadn't done that.  You can be sure that I won't make that same mistake twice.  I don't like feeling like I have disappointed Prof. Costley.  She is going to make or break me passing for the next year.  It is better to impress her rather than make her question my unpreparedness.

On to my day.  We started out by practicing going over the health history sheet.  Stefanie and I were practicing on each other again.  They informed us that the health history portion of the appointment could possibly take the entire appointment time.  Now, mind you, my appointment time at first is going to be 3 hours!  Heaven help me if I take three hours to go over health information with my patient.  Hopefully, if that happens, I get a nice person that won't be mad that we didn't even get to the cleaning.  The reason that may happen is due to the need to write down what the patient says regarding questions that were answered with a "yes."  Also, if they are on several (or lots) of medication, I have to write down each and every one and look them up in my drug reference book.  That in and of itself is very tedious.  I understand why we need to do it though.  The health of our patient is in our hands and I have to be very careful because of the oral side effects of drugs. 

We also were able to practice vital signs.  I really struggled taking Stef's blood pressure.  I brought my stethescope and BP cuff home to practice on Trev.  Hopefully he doesn't mind me squeezing the crap out of his arm several times in a row.  I just want to be able to get it before we go over the Vitals PE next week.  I want to be able to walk in that clinic and feel like a pro at taking vitals on my patients.  This time I want to be completely prepared!